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Apostastic! Part 1: Methodist Madness

August 11th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

There have been a couple of bible stories (about, not from) in the news in the last few weeks. One was about the “Jefferson Bible,” a version of the four canonical Gospels that Thomas Jefferson worked over with a pair of scissors. He cut out all of the miracles (including the big reveal resurrection) and inconsistencies that he could find, and pasted it into a book he called The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

The other was about the planned online publication of the Codex Sinaiticus. The Codex is a Christian Bible, written in Greek and dated from the Fourth Century CE. It contains the oldest surviving complete copy of the New Testament, including books that were later eliminated from the canon, and is missing verses that are included in the current version. The most notable omission is in this early version of the Gospel of Mark, which ends 12 verses earlier than later versions, without mentioning the zombie resurrected Jesus.

Because I am that kind of solipsist, reading these stories got me thinking about my deconversion. I didn’t have a sudden epiphany. It was more a long slide away from my childhood faith. But it was studying the bible seriously that turned on the boosters and sent me careening toward apostasy.

I was raised in the United Methodist Church, which is generally the unsalted cracker of Christianity. The central philosophy is that nobody can deserve salvation. We’re all sinners, and no amount of prayer, confession, generosity or crusading good works can make one worthy of God’s love. The key to not burning in a fiery fire for everty-ever is believing in the divinity and all-encompassing love of Jesus. As long as you’re square with the J-man, you’ll naturally do good things because you’re inspired by his love, and you’ll therefore spread his love like sweet orange marmalade on a perfectly toasted English Muffin.

It’s got the central tenets of Christianity. There’s the squirrely math (where a guy is really three guys, one of whom is his own father). There are the bits about symbolic cannibalism and the zombie savior. What it doesn’t have is anything dramatic or interesting. No snake handling or speaking in tongues, no wildly joyous singing and dancing, no sitting in an old-fashioned telephone box confessing your sins to a man who has, at least theoretically, never voluntarily ejaculated. Even the communion ritual often swaps the wine and wafers for grape juice and unbaked croutons.

This is generally not a recipe for fanatical, worshipful devotion. It certainly wasn’t for me. I only went to church every Sunday, and Sunday School during the school year. Also choir practice on Wednesday afternoons. And Vacation Bible School during the summer. And Youth Group meetings and retreats. And play practices and performances. And friggin’ handbell chorus for like a year.

Okay, so I spent a lot of time in church and related activities. But I wasn’t there because it was compelling. I was there because… well, just because. It was the way I was raised. It was a lot of my organized recreation and a huge chunk of my (admittedly anemic) social life. I never had any strong feelings about anything supernatural. God was a mostly unconsidered premise, and church was just something that I was always doing, whether I wanted to or not.

Next Time: Bible stories, critical thinking, and an attempt to excavate the point of all of this. Bring a shovel.

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